Giants spent years perfecting winning formula

The New York Giants are one win away from becoming the only National Football League (NFL) team with four Super Bowl wins in the last 25 years...

NEW YORK: The New York Giants are one win away from becoming the only National Football League (NFL) team with four Super Bowl wins in the last 25 years, a stunning turnaround for a franchise that always seemed to come up short in its early years.

The franchise, which dates back to the early days of the NFL, find themselves in position to pull off the feat after a late-season surge propelled them into a Feb. 5 Super Bowl rematch against the New England Patriots.

From 1933 to 1965, from the advent of the NFL playoffs up to the creation of the Super Bowl, the Giants made the most trips to the championship game but won only three of 14 chances.

With star running backs Frank Gifford and Alex Webster, and a staunch defense led by Andy Robustelli, Rosey Grier and Sam Huff, the Giants were a New York glamour team for a stretch starting in the mid-1950s.

They won the NFL title in 1956 and lost to the Colts and Hall of Fame quarterback Johnny Unitas in an overtime final at Yankee Stadium in 1958 that is credited with launching the league as must-see TV.

The Giants reached the championship game in five out of six seasons from 1958 but lost each time, twice to the Packers and head coach Vince Lombardi, who served as New York's offensive coordinator in the 1950s.

The Giants went into decline after the 1963 title game loss to Chicago and grew keen to leave Yankee Stadium for a home of their own. They struck a deal to build a stadium across the Hudson River in New Jersey.

'LOUSY FOOTBALL'

Crowds flocked to Giants Stadium but the losing drone on, and got so bad that a group fans in 1978 hired a small plane to fly over the stadium carrying a banner that read: "15 years of lousy football ... we've had enough" at a game where more than 24,000 ticket holders were no-shows.

With a dispute hampering the running of the family-owned Giants, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle suggested they hire a general manager to handle football decisions, recommending Miami Dolphins executive George Young for the job.

With Young at the helm, the Giants drafted linebacker Lawrence Taylor, quarterback Phil Simms and hired Bill Parcells as head coach, the cornerstones of a championship team.

The Giants won their first Super Bowl in 1987 with a 39-20 win against John Elway and the Denver Broncos. Four years later, they returned to the Super Bowl and beat the Bills 20-19 for the first of Buffalo's four successive Super Bowl defeats.

Four years ago the New York Giants entered the playoffs as a wild card team and, despite arriving to the Super Bowl as a 12-point underdog, beat the Patriots 17-14 to deprive them of an unprecedented 19-0 season.